33.6
1885 105,622 21,277 20.14 32.9
1886 109,074 21,856 20.04 32.8
1887 111,937 20,590 18.39 31.9
1888 115,803 20,244 17.48 31.2
1889 123,223 20,503 16.64 31.1
1890 131,057 20,402 15.57 30.2
1891 141,269 22,500 15.93 31.4
1892 153,595 23,471 15.28 30.5
1893 169,344 25,430 15.02 30.8
1894 184,629 27,000 14.08 29.6
1895 201,075 29,263 14.55 30.4
1896 206,673 30,313 14.67

In this remarkable table the percentage of births to total membership
gradually rose from 21.76, in 1866, to 24.72, in 1880, and then
gradually declined to 14.67 in 1896.

This is a striking instance of the fact that the decrease in the total
birth-rate is due more to a decrease in the fecundity of marriage, than
to a decrease of the marriage-rate.

Mr. Webb adds:--"The well-known actuary, Mr. R.P. Hardy, watching the
statistics year by year, and knowing intimately all the circumstances of
the organisation, attributes this startling reduction in the number of
births of children to these specially prosperous and specially thrifty
artisans entirely to their deliberate desire to limit the size of their
families."

The marriage-rate in England and Wales commenced to decline about three
years before the sudden change in the birth-rate of 1877, and continued
to fall till about 1880, but has maintained a fairly uniform standard
since then, rising slightly in fact, the birth-rate, meanwhile,
descending rapidly.

CHAPTER IV.

MEANS ADOPTED.

_Family Responsibility--Natural fertility undiminished.--Voluntary
prevention and physiological knowledge.--New Zealand
experience.--Diminishing influence of delayed marriage.--Practice of
abortion.--Popular sympathy in criminal cases.--Absence of complicating
issues in New Zealand.--Colonial desire for comfort and happiness._

There is a gradually increasing consensus of opinion amongst
statisticians, that the explanation of the decrease in the number of
births is to be found in the desire of married persons to limit the
family they have to rear a